Plagiarism by bot

Greetings all, this is Vlad in Tokyo. Today I want to talk about how artificial intelligence systems are copycatting human artists, to the d [View in browser]( [Bloomberg]( Greetings all, this is Vlad in Tokyo. Today I want to talk about how artificial intelligence systems are copycatting human artists, to the detriment of all. But first... Today’s must-reads: • Sept. 5 is the deadline for Apple’s corporate employees to be in the office [at least three days a week]( • Andreessen Horowitz is [backing Adam Neumann]( of WeWork infamy • Twitter was ordered to [hand over some files]( to Elon Musk Rage against the machine artist A confession: I’d rather be editing photos right now. It’s a passion of mine that blossomed when I arrived in Tokyo, and a handful of people on Twitter seem to think I’ve gotten good at it over the years. It pleases me —and, I think, them — when I [share pictures]( of my adoptive home city. But instead, I feel compelled to rant about how Silicon Valley is again undercutting the ability for anyone to make a living from pursuing a creative hobby. I’m talking about [Dall-E]( and other AI-driven image generators of its ilk. My objection is that they make plagiarism trivial and easy: you just feed them my photos, combine them with the vast trove of other people’s images you scrape off the web, and they’ll spit out any scene you like in my particular style. And now that they’re going commercial — Dall-E’s price is $15 for 115 text-based prompts — they’ll completely hollow out the already emaciated market for professional photography, editing and imagery. Before you say this is a Luddite fallacy, here’s the distinction I want to make: I’m not arguing against automation taking over menial, potentially harmful human chores — a Japanese convenience store chain is this month rolling out [robot arms to restock drink shelves]( and I’m all for it. Some endeavors have surplus non-economic benefits and thus are worth preserving. Expressions of creativity are inherently rewarding for creators and audience alike. They fire our imagination, deepen our empathy and give meaning and feeling to the mechanical processes of existing. But we live in a world where we have to monetarily justify any substantial commitment of time. And so we as a society and as a whole need to protect the ability of artists to monetize their art. This applies to classical musicians, who’ve largely been reduced to eking out an uncertain living, as much as it does to people who can push pixels around a screen. Both wield skills borne out of decades of practice and experimentation. It’s already a heroic task to be a professional photographer or digital artist. Often, you’re pushed into freelance or piecemeal work, because the internet has largely devalued your work by making it so easy to duplicate. Or you might get hired by a games studio, which takes advantage of your passion for the work and subjects you to [chronic overtime](. Now even the remaining opportunities like designing, illustrating or photographing something to a customer’s specification, are under threat. Dall-E’s less-scrupulous rivals are much more direct about ripping off the style and signature elements of digital artists — to the point where they even [try to copy the artist’s logo](! I’ve heard the arguments about how AI systems will largely assist artists rather than taking over, that they’re still too crude to replace actual humans. And then I see [this Atlantic article]( whose art is generated by Midjourney, a Dall-E alternative. Beyond the first-person perspective on this, I want to leave you with another thought. All these machine systems are fed by existing art — and we know that the art world hasn’t ever been particularly inclusive. If we let machine-generated art become the norm, we’re entrenching the status quo and stifling artists of under-represented backgrounds from expressing themselves, their experience, their cultural milieu. I started writing about technology many years ago because I love the improvements it brings. Now, however, the more important task is to foresee and — wherever possible — avoid the humanity-sapping costs that increasingly accompany those technical improvements. —[Vlad Savov](mailto:vsavov5@bloomberg.net) The big story Amazon-owned Whole Foods waged a battle against Black Lives Matter that has much higher stakes than the ability to wear shirts with slogans in stores. The general counsel at the NLRB is seeking a ruling that would give US workers [something more like free speech](. What else you need to know Apple’s laying off recruiters as the latest step in its [hiring slowdown](. Meta’s proposed acquisition of a virtual reality company is headed for a [court showdown in December](. 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